As retail shopping has changed with the rise of e-commerce, Target Corporate, one of the largest retail stores in the United States, made the strategic decision to invest in developing a core data science and technology team to remain competitive in its physical and online shopping experiences. The company hired a team of technologists who initially worked at enhancing the company's digital and mobile solutions, but soon began influencing the company's physical retail locations. The case explores the opportunities and challenges of competing against retail behemoths such as Amazon and Walmart, while integrating digital and physical cultures.

The advantages of speed are often invoked by academics and practitioners as an essential condition during post-acquisition integration, frequently without consideration of the impact earlier decisions have on acquisition speed. In this article, we examine the role speed plays in acquisitions across the acquisition process using research organized around characteristics that display complexity with respect to acquisition speed. We incorporate existing research with a process perspective of acquisitions in order to present trade-offs, and consider the influence of both stakeholders and the pre-deal-completion context on acquisition speed, as well as the organization's capabilities to facilitating that speed. Observed trade-offs suggest both that acquisition speed often requires longer planning time before an acquisition and that associated decisions require managerial judgement. A framework for improving manager decisions during acquisitions is discussed and its implications for managers and research summarized.

On June 16, 2013, the Irish government sponsored the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, which proposed to allow abortions when doctors determined the procedure was necessary to save the life of the mother. The bill was introduced in Ireland's House of Representatives to much debate. Some Representatives who were opposed to the bill felt that that they should be entitled to vote their conscience rather vote the party line. The consequences of voting against the party were considerable: Representatives who did so would be immediately ousted from the party. Creighton voted against the bill and was automatically expelled from Fine Gael, her parliamentary party; the Government won the vote, 130 to 24. When asked about Fine Gael's pre-election commitment to keep abortion illegal, she said, "I know in my own mind we made a clear commitment before the last election. I repeated that commitment, I meant it and held it sincerely. This legislation is a breach of that commitment." The case is designed to facilitate discussion of the differences between the trustee and the delegate models of representation and an evaluation the relative merits of each as they pertain to definitions of 'good representation.' Students will formulate a personal definition of 'good representation,' identifying those characteristics specifically tied to representative 'quality.' Students should be able to analyze the interaction between intensity of preferences and public (or personal) assessment of representative 'quality.' Through the case and the class discussion, students will learn to develop personal frameworks and metrics for assessing the work of legislators in representative democracies; appropriately apply these frameworks and metrics to existing situations; demonstrate the capacity to engage in systematic comparative analyses of both normative and empirical information; and, justify arguments using articulately crafted, evidence-based ideas.

Competitive retaliation is a significant constraint to merger and acquisition performance that has largely been overlooked by management research. This article employs competitive dynamics theory to explore how acquisition characteristics impact the risk of competitor retaliation. It then outlines different tactics that acquiring firms can use to reduce competitor awareness, motivation, and capability associated with retaliation. It provides managers with a path to improving acquisition performance and also opens new avenues for research.

In 2013, democratic Colorado state senators John Morse and Angela Giron were recalled from office in the wake of a successful recall campaign launched by grassroots groups angered by the senators' support for newly-enacted gun control legislation. After Morse and Giron were recalled, Democrats retained a one-seat majority in the Senate. Some critics thought Morse should have anticipated the recall election result and resigned while others expressed concern that Morse's ouster had legitimized the use of recall politics-typically used to unseat politicians over ethical issues-as a way for voters to punish supporters of controversial issues. The case asks students to consider the benefits and drawbacks of recall elections and how they can be used by political activists and interest groups as a tool to manage political representation.

When local governments face budget pressures, one approach is to regionalize services-that is, to seek out greater economies of scale by consolidating service delivery with other municipalities. This case describes the effort of two small (though well-heeled) Massachusetts towns to explore a police merger during the financial recession of 2009. The towns of Hamilton and Wenham, located north of Boston in the "North Shore" area, had, in the past, successfully consolidated school systems, libraries, recreation departments, and more. By some calculations, the towns stood to save a significant amount of money by merging police forces. Ultimately, however, they decided against it. The case includes partly conflicting data from several studies that estimate the financial impact of a police merger. Case number 1988.0

In October 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law a requirement that certain private health insurance plans provide coverage for mental illness equal to coverage provided for medical-surgical illness as part of an economic stimulus package, capping more than a decade of advocacy in both houses of Congress by a bipartisan coalition of Congressmen and Senators for mental health parity. Through multiple changes in Congressional leadership, the coalition - including Senators Pete Domenici (R - N.M.), Paul Wellstone (D - MN), and Edward Kennedy (D - MA) and Representatives Patrick Kennedy (D - R.I.) and Jim Ramstad (R - MN) - remained consistent and employed multiple procedural, political, and negotiation strategies to increase the visibility of mental health parity and advance their cause through piecemeal efforts. The sixteen-year path of mental health parity from first introduction in Congress to eventual enactment is an example of the impact of personal commitment, personalities and personal relationships, and the importance of the committee structure, political party leadership, and windows of political opportunity.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) represent a popular strategy used by firms for many years, but the success of this strategy has been limited. In fact, several reviews have shown that, on average, firms create little or no value by making acquisitions. While there has been a significant amount of research on mergers and acquisitions, there appears to be little consensus as to the reasons for outcomes achieved from them. Herein, we begin by reviewing some of the extant research on mergers and acquisitions, identifying the key variables on which the studies have focused. Thereafter, we summarize some of the major work on a primary reason for failure--paying too high a premium--and discuss why executives often delay too long the divestiture of poorly performing businesses that were acquired. Additionally, we examine research suggesting the importance of an acquisition capability based on organizational learning from the acquisitions and complementary science and technology for strategic renewal. Finally, we end with a discussion of the research on cross-border mergers and acquisitions which have become prominent in recent years.